Entanglement cost of discriminating noisy Bell states by local operations and classical communication

Abstract

Entangled states can help in quantum state discrimination by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). For example, a Bell state is necessary (and sufficient) to perfectly discriminate a set of either three or four Bell states by LOCC. In this paper, we consider the task of LOCC discrimination of the states of noisy Bell ensembles, where a given ensemble consists of the states obtained by mixing the Bell states with an arbitrary two-qubit state with nonzero probabilities. It is proved that a Bell state is required for optimal discrimination by LOCC, even though the ensembles do not contain, in general, any maximally entangled state, and in specific instances, any entangled state.